Content Warning: These Chapter Summaries and Analyses contain mentions and descriptions of anti-trans violence and death by suicide that are depicted in Mad Honey.

Olivia McAfee remembers how, from the moment she knew she was pregnant, she wanted a baby girl. When her son, Asher, was finally born, however, she was relieved to have a boy, “who would never be someone’s victim” (3).

Olivia grew up in Adams, New Hampshire, on her family farm. Generations of McAfees have been apiarists by hobby. Olivia took over the family apiary from her father after his death just a year after her wedding. Then living in Boston with her husband, Braden Fields, a doctor at Mass General, Olivia drive back and forth between Boston and Adams every week to maintain the apiary. After divorcing Braden, she moved back to Adams permanently with her son, Asher, and became the first commercially successful apiarist in her family.

In the present, on December 7, 2018, Olivia joins 18-year-old Asher Fields for breakfast and asks about Lily, his girlfriend, who is a newcomer to the town, Asher and Lily have been inseparable since the fall. Asher is preoccupied with his phone and rushes out after breakfast.